In her first semester at Holyoke Community College, Haley Woods spent nearly $1,000 on books and materials.

"Myself and other students have avoided purchasing textbooks for a class because they're so ridiculously expensive," Woods said.

Woods believes that with the free online material available today, some of these expenses are unnecessary.

"As a freshman in college, I was taking a lot of intro courses, and the information is so generalized, there really wasn't a reason I had to pay $200 for a textbook when I could find that information through videos, pdfs and free online books," Woods said.

Open educational resources, or OER, are an increasingly popular solution to the problem of students being unable to afford textbooks that cost hundreds of dollars.

OER includes online material like videos, links to relevant web pages, textbooks, homework and assessments. Material is published online and free, under a license that allows anyone to use it.

Now a sophomore and a student senator, Woods is a passionate advocate for OER -- and she is not alone. The Massachusetts Department of Higher Education recently launched a working group to make recommendations related to expanding OER. The state distributed nearly $500,000 in grants to schools experimenting with the material.

"We're concerned that the lack of OER is creating really an equity issues for students, in which low-income students in particular can't afford the high cost of textbooks and other materials," said Higher Education Commissioner Carlos Santiago.

Santiago said the grants "allow campuses to innovate, to experiment a bit, take risks and see what works, get a sense of what might not be working."

The use of free online resources can potentially change the way students learn -- and change the face of the traditional publishing industry.

A student at Springfield Technical Community College on Monday, Nov. 26, 2018. Some of the school's professors are also using open educational resources.

Open educational resources have existed for around a decade and are growing in popularity.

Texas' Rice University has created a database of free online textbooks, and faculty elsewhere have also created OER content. Grants, both private and public, are available to pay faculty to create OER and convert their classes.

Springfield Technical Community College professor Ann Simao uses open educational resources in her classes.

In Massachusetts, the fiscal 2017 budget included a provision that the Department of Higher Education may establish guidelines to assist colleges with implementing programs that reduce textbook costs.

"There's clearly a lot of legislative intent to provide more OER resources and really focus on affordability," said Santiago, who expects state officials to make policy recommendations in 2019.

But so far, bills to establish a commission to examine reducing the cost of college textbooks have repeatedly stalled in legislative committees.

Sen. Marc Pacheco, D-Taunton, introduced one such bill. He said there is a "quiet but powerful lobby behind not wanting to see whether or not this is going to save students some money."

Education publisher Pearson paid the lobbying firm Preti Strategies $30,000 in 2018, according to public disclosure forms. Preti Strategies employs former Senate minority leader Republican Richard Tisei, as well as Jim Eisenberg, who was former chief of staff to Democratic House Speaker Robert DeLeo.

A Pearson spokesman referred questions to the Association of American Publishers. The association paid $11,500 in 2018 to lobbyist Michael Muse for work on bills related to college textbook costs.

Amazon also paid $36,000 to Kearney, Donovan and McGee for lobbying on these bills.

Publishing industry representatives say they see OER as just one option of many to address textbook affordability.